Tales of the City: Tales of the City, Book 1

For more than three decades Armistead Maupin's Tales of the City has blazed its own trail through popular culture...from a groundbreaking newspaper serial, to a classic novel, to a television event that entranced millions around the world. The first of six novels about the denizens of the mythic apartment house at 28 Barbary Lane, Tales of the City is both a sparkling comedy of manners and an indelible portrait of an era that changed forever the way we live.

The Night Listener

This unprecedented audio project is as thought-provoking as it is mesmeric. The Night Listener is a meditation on the power of voices and the faith we place in them, and an extraordinary audio experience from an American literary icon.

Suck Less: Where There's a Willam, There's a Way

The only lie told more often than "no, that looks totally cute on you" and "I got AIDS through oral" is "it gets better". Well, a lotta times it don't. Sometimes it just sucks less. But I promise you: Where there's a Willam, there's a way. But this isn't all about me (for once). It's about you and how you can suck less at a variety of things drag queens are so much better at than the average person.

Collide

At 10 years old, Noah Jameson and Cooper Bradshaw collided midair when they dove for the same football. For three years they were inseparable...until one day when Noah and his parents disappeared in the middle of the night. Noah and Cooper never knew what happened to each other. Now, 17 years later, after finding his boyfriend in bed with another man, Noah returns to Blackcreek looking for a fresh start. And damned if he doesn't find his old friend grew up to be as sexy as sin.

Wolfsong

Ox was 23 when murder came to town and tore a hole in his head and heart. The boy chased after the monster with revenge in his blood red eyes, leaving Ox behind to pick up the pieces. It's been three years since that fateful day and the boy is back. Except now he's a man, and Ox can no longer ignore the song that howls between them.

Heroes of the Frontier

Josie and her children's father have split up, she's been sued by a former patient and lost her dental practice, and she's grieving the death of a young man senselessly killed. When her ex asks to take the children to meet his new fiancée's family, Josie makes a run for it, figuring Alaska is about as far as she can get without a passport. Josie and her kids, Paul and Ana, rent a rattling old RV named the Chateau, and at first their trip feels like a vacation.

The Wangs vs. the World

Charles Wang is mad at America. A brash, lovable immigrant businessman who built a cosmetics empire and made a fortune, he's just been ruined by the financial crisis. Now all Charles wants is to get his kids safely stowed away so that he can go to China and attempt to reclaim his family's ancestral lands - and his pride. Outrageously funny and full of charm, The Wangs vs. the World is an entirely fresh look at what it means to belong in America - and how going from glorious riches to (still name-brand) rags brings one family together in a way money never could.

The Secret History of Twin Peaks

From the cocreator of the landmark series, the story millions of fans have been waiting to get their hands on for 25 long years.

A vastly layered, wide-ranging history that deepens the mysteries of the iconic town in ways that will thrill disciples of the original series and will prep fans for the upcoming SHOWTIME® series like nothing else out there.

The One Man: A Novel

It's 1944. Physics professor Alfred Mendel and his family are trying to flee Paris when they are caught and forced onto a train along with thousands of other Jewish families. At the other end of the long, torturous train ride, Alfred is separated from his family and sent to the men's camp, where all of his belongings are tossed on a roaring fire. His books, his papers, his life's work. The Nazis have no idea what they have just destroyed. And without that physical record, Alfred is one of only two people in the world with his particular knowledge.

The Corrections: A Novel

The Corrections is a grandly entertaining novel for the new century--a comic, tragic masterpiece about a family breaking down in an age of easy fixes. After almost 50 years as a wife and mother, Enid Lambert is ready to have some fun. Unfortunately, her husband, Alfred, is losing his sanity to Parkinson's disease, and their children have long since flown the family nest to the catastrophes of their own lives. Enid has set her heart on an elusive goal: bringing her family together for one last Christmas at home.

Kathy Griffin's Celebrity Run-Ins: My A-Z Index

From New York Times best-selling author Kathy Griffin, an A-Z compendium of the celebrities she's met over the years and the jaw-dropping, charming, and sometimes bizarre anecdotes only she can tell about them. Starting with Woody Allen and making pit stops with Demi Lovato, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Donald Trump, Kathy Griffin finally lifts the veil on her never-before-told run-ins with the famous and the infamous.

The Jungle

The Jungle is the story of Jurgis Rudkus, a Slavic immigrant who marries frail Ona Lukoszaite and seeks security and happiness as a workman in the Chicago stockyards. Once there, he is abused by foremen, his meager savings are filched by real estate sharks, and at every turn he is plagued by the misfortunes arising from poverty, poor working conditions, and disease. Finally, in accordance with Sinclair’s own creed, Rudkus turns to socialism as a way out.

How to Be a Normal Person

Gustavo Tiberius is not normal. He knows this. Everyone in his small town of Abby, Oregon, knows this. He reads encyclopedias every night before bed. He has a pet ferret called Harry S. Truman. He owns a video rental store that no one goes to. His closest friends are a lady named Lottie with drag queen hair and a trio of elderly Vespa riders known as the We Three Queens.

Lily and the Octopus

When you listen to Lily and the Octopus, you will be taken on an unforgettable ride. The magic of this novel is in the listening, and we don't want to spoil it by giving away too many details. We can tell you that this is a story about that special someone: the one you trust, the one you can't live without. For Ted Flask, that someone special is his aging companion, Lily, who happens to be a dog.

Empire Falls

Dexter County, Maine, and specifically the town of Empire Falls, has seen better days, and for decades, in fact, only a succession from bad to worse. One by one, its logging and textile enterprises have gone belly-up, and the once vast holdings of the Whiting clan (presided over by the last scion’s widow) now mostly amount to decrepit real estate. The working classes, meanwhile, continue to eke out whatever meager promise isn’t already boarded up. Miles Roby gazes over this ruined kingdom from the Empire Grill, an opportunity of his youth that has become the albatross of his life.

Mrs Queen Takes the Train

An absolute delight of a debut novel by William Kuhn - author of Reading Jackie: Her Autobiography in Books - Mrs Queen Takes the Train wittily imagines the kerfuffle that transpires when a bored Queen Elizabeth strolls out of the palace in search of a little fun, leaving behind a desperate team of courtiers who must find the missing Windsor before a national scandal erupts.

A Single Man

When A Single Man was originally published, it shocked many by its frank, sympathetic, and moving portrayal of a gay man in midlife. George, the protagonist, is adjusting to life on his own after the sudden death of his partner, and determines to persist in the routines of his daily life; the course of A Single Man spans 24 hours in an ordinary day.

In Such Good Company: Eleven Years of Laughter, Mayhem, and Fun in the Sandbox

Who but Carol Burnett herself has the timing, talent, and wit to pull back the curtain on the Emmy Award-winning show that made television history for 11 glorious seasons? In Such Good Company delves into little-known stories of the guests, sketches, and antics that made the show legendary as well as some favorite tales too good not to relive again. Carol lays it all out for us, from the show's original conception to its evolution into one of the most beloved primetime programs of its generation.

Publisher's Summary

When an ordinary househusband and his ambitious wife decide to start a family, they discover there's more to making a baby then meets the eye. Help arrives in the form of a grieving gay neighbor, a visiting monarch, and the dashing young lieutenant who defects from her yacht. Bittersweet and profoundly affecting, Babycakes was the first work of fiction to acknowledge the arrival of AIDS.

No, because I can't take Alan Cumming's narration. He's ruining the book and doesn't seem to understand the first thing about acting or character. All of his female characters, regardless of their age, sound like an overly effete, drunk, air-headed, lush of a 13 year old girl. This one's definitely better in book form.

How did the narrator detract from the book?

See above.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

Yes, but Alan Cumming made it a chore. His amateurish narration was jarring and pulled me out of the book (which I have happily read at least eight times, like the rest of the series, since it was released).

Any additional comments?

Most of these books are better read than listened to, but this one is the most poorly narrated of all. It's impossible to love the characters the way you do in the book when they all talk like completely gushy drunken idiots.

See previous reviews for discussion of the characters. The big difference in this book is that the subject matter begins to get more serious as the author and our country began to come to grips with the crisis of AIDS. Since the series was originally published in a newspaper is was necessary to follow current events which makes it all that much more realistic. The other big difference in this audiobook is the male narrator which probably seemed appropriate since the series begins to revolve more around Michael and less around Mary Ann. Alan Cummings can be a bit hard to take at first since you are, by now, likely used to the gentler tones of Ms. McDorland or Ms. Nixon narrating. He's not THAT bad, it's just that he takes his voice acting a bit over the top to the point where his voice is grating for brief moments which is why I knocked a star off the performance. He lands solidly on the acting side of the narrator/actor balance but he gives us stereotypes. As the book goes I adjusted and he does excellent British accents which are necessary and appropriate to the story. Still, he gets four stars. Some will give worse but while the narrator may slightly diminish, he will by no means ruin your enjoyment of this book. (He's still a *lot* better than the alternative which was Maupin reading his own work.) Here Mary Ann struggles with trying to balance a career and pressures to be a parent. There isn't as much of a fantastic mystery at the heart of this fourth book as there were in the previous two. It is again recommended that you start with the original Tales of the City before listening to the subsequent tales of Mr. Tolliver, Mary Ann, Brian, et. al. The standard warning is issued against the prudish & close-minded as these books are nothing if not frank about sexual behavior both gay and straight and in-between. If you are eager, as I was, to revisit the original series but with no time to sit and read it, you'll be satisfied with this book which follows Michael to England during the year of the Queen's visit to America back in the Regan era. If you haven't read this series, as Rachel Maddow says, "you lucky dog" you are in for a treat.

I've listened to other books narrated by Alan Cumming and loved them, but this one not so much. His British accents in Babycakes are (as you would expect) excellent, but he manages to make every single female character in this book sound extraordinarily shrill. It marred the experience for me.

Classic Armistead Maupin, Babycakes is a wonderful book. The storyline takes you on outrageous twists and turns but all of it is believable because of Maupin's richly developed characters. Nothing about them is forced or stretched to fit the story, they are already more than enough. While Alan Cumming narrates very well for the most part, his low voice does not lend itself to doing female voices. Most come across as caricatures, undermining the written strength of the characters. (They can also really grate on your nerves.) Don't give up on the book because of the performance, you'll miss out on so much more! (And take comfort in the fact that he doesn't narrate any other books in the series.)

This wonderful col!section of lovable, dreadful characters are the special provenance is Armistead Maupin. If you laugh at and delight in them half as much as I, you will put this book on a special shelf of yout library.

I DO intend to buy and listen to the next books in this series.... as long as they are not read by the whimpering Alan Cumming, an actor I DO like on the stage and screen.

What didn’t you like about Alan Cumming’s performance?

Cumming has a weird notion of what American men AND women sound like when they converse. He makes the author's language sound trite, self-pitying, and childish. It will be a pleasure to return to Cynthia Nixon's narration for book FIVE of the series.